At the end of the preliminary hearing Superior Court Judge Lloyd Nash will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to order Blake and a bodyguard to stand trial. Most preliminary hearings last one or two days, but prosecutors in the Blake case planned an extensive presentation lasting 10 days or more.

The first witness was called after defense attorneys failed to prevent the prosecution from using charts in its presentation, claiming they were prejudicial.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. also told the judge that police detectives had been traveling around the country inappropriately showing witnesses private psychological therapy journals that Blake had kept throughout his life.

Mesereau sought to exclude the journals from the hearing, but the issue became moot when the prosecution said it would not use them.

Bakley was shot to death as she sat in the couple's car near a restaurant where they had just dined on May 4, 2001. Blake has claimed he went back into the restaurant to retrieve a gun he carried for protection and found Bakley shot when he returned to the car.

Mesereau said in an earlier interview that he would use the hearing to vigorously cross-examine prosecution witnesses. He said he believes witnesses, including several police officers, were influenced by the fame of being connected to a high-profile Hollywood murder case.

"They've had a lot of fun hanging around Hollywood," Mesereau said of the Los Angeles Police Department, which investigated the case.

The prosecution's key witnesses were expected to be two former Hollywood stuntmen who say Blake tried to pay them to kill Bakley. When that failed, prosecutors say, the actor shot the 44-year-old woman himself.

Blake, who pleaded innocent to charges including murder, faces life in prison without parole if convicted. Earle Caldwell, a former bodyguard, driver and handyman for Blake, is charged with conspiring with the actor.

Blake, 69, has been jailed in solitary confinement since his April arrest. Last summer, he told The Associated Press there was no bad blood between him and Bakley and he had no motive to kill her.

"I didn't know her that well, but what I knew I didn't hate," he said.

Blake repeated many of the statements from that interview in a TV appearance with Barbara Walters that was to be broadcast Wednesday night on ABC's "20/20."